First Fall Card

I know it's not officially fall yet, but I'm starting to feel like using fall colors again. This is my first fall card of the season. Last week I got a new order from Stampin' Up! with some treats from the new Holiday Mini Collection. I treated myself to "True Friend" which is very different than an of the other stamp sets that I have and I got the Apple Cider Designer Series paper to coordinate. The cool thing is that all the Mini Catalog stamp sets are die cut which made assembling SO much faster! I'm hoping that this will eventually become standard for all of Stampin' Up!'s sets.

This card is inspired by Beate Johns' style of using the "All in a Row" set to add a stitched look to the edges of elements. This was a little tricky at first to get it lined up right on the edge, so it should get easier with more practice.

The card base is Natural Ivory. For the background I used Pumpkin Pie cardstock and stamped some "True Friend" flowers in Pumpkin Pie ink all over it. I sponged some chocolate chip ink along the outer edges of the background and then used "All in a Row" to stamp chocolate chip "stitching" along the edges.

I created the focal point by inking the flower (also from "True Friend") with Pumpkin Pie ink and then sponging some Chocolate Chip ink on the outer edges of the rubber before stamping it on Natural Ivory cardstock. I added some more stitching on the edges of this piece and then layered it on some Wild Wasabi cardstock with some sponged Chocolate Chip ink on the edges.

I layered this focal image on top of a piece of Apple Cider paper that I also had inked along the edges with Chocolate Chip. I tied a piece of River Rock double stitched ribbon around the patterned paper to give some dimensionality. Since this ribbon is so thick I found it best to adhere the patterened paper and the focal point to the card using dimensionals, which added even more dimensionality.

I added a simple greeting using my Rough Edges Mini Alphabet and Chocolate Chip ink. I'm finding that the small alphabets are perfect for creating your own greeting when you don't have a stamp that says what you want, or with a font that is appropriate for the card style.